feminism, motherhood, writing

Hey! Jeremy Wokingham-Beard here, PhD student, literal communist and lifelong feminist ally. You may be wondering why I have a dead woman on my sofa.

It’s okay, I understand. For privileged middle-aged women who aren’t up to date with the latest thinking in social justice circles, this might look bad. On a superficial, bioessentialist level, being stripped naked and having a steak knife plunged through your heart by yours truly might seem to make a woman the victim of lethal male violence. Context, however, is everything.

This woman was in fact the Wrong Type of Feminist. Kind of changes things, doesn’t it? As we all know – or would know, if it were not for Mainstream Bigoted Media – the Wrong Types of Feminist are responsible for more deaths than the number of human beings who have ever existed in the first place. Therefore killing her – or “killing” her, since I consider the stabbing to have been a performative act of retribution taking place on a hermeneutically liminal plane – was the only responsible course of action.

I know, I know. You’re still feeling pretty squeamish. Fancy a custard cream? Look, you’re not alone in being female corpse-phobic. Many people are raised with these deeply embedded phobias. I’m not judging you. Or rather, I won’t judge you providing you promise to work on those prejudices of yours.

As I explore in greater detail in my graduate dissertation, Queering The Ripper: Why Murdered Women Are The Most Violent Members of Society, many people still cling to very basic, old-fashioned understandings of what we mean by “violence”. Physical and verbal violence, for instance, tend to be considered “real” violence when in fact, the most dangerous violence of all is done by other people thinking and existing. While a crass overview of crime statistics might tell you that male people are by far the greatest perpetrators of physical “violence”, female violence, which usually takes the form of speaking, thinking and existing, is a hidden epidemic. I’m sure Dworkin, were she still alive, would agree with me on this. Certainly, many of today’s most prominent feminist thinkers – Jones, Chu, Berlatsky – have expressed similar sentiments.

To be clear: as a feminist, I am 100% against all gender-based violence against people of all genders. Hence I’d be failing in my duties as a cis white male ally to not respond to the literal violence of this Wrong Kind of Feminist’s thinking. I can see you’re still a bit fixated on that knife, though. Therefore I implore you to ask yourself this: are you really bothered that I stabbed this bitch? Or are you using it as an excuse to make your own Wrong Kind of Feminism sympathies feel more acceptable? It’s important to consider your own privilege in all this.

Coffee? Milk, two sugars? What’s that? You want to know why I took off all her clothes and bound her in leather? This was in honour of all the sex workers that this woman literally murdered by claiming that many sex workers are “literally murdered” (sic) by male clients. Anyhow, I’d ask you not to judge her for her appearance right now. Stabbing women through the heart is one thing; kink-shaming them in death is quite another.

I see you’ve got your phone out. I hope you’re not thinking of calling the police. It’s well-known that the police – ACAB! – single out and enact violence upon the most marginalised members of society. As a cis white male ally, I’m especially sensitive to the way in which reporting me for the murder of a woman would only serve to benefit the prison-industrial complex. No one would be made safer, least of all those at risk of more violence from other Wrong Kinds of Feminist. I’m their only hope.